by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Does Wall Street prefer female CFOs to male CFOs? While it’s unlikely the financial world will make that claim any time soon, new research out of Boston College indicates the street responds more favorably to financial moves made by companies where the CFO is a woman. David Kisgen, an assistant professor at Boston College co-authored the Gender and Corporate Finance study with Jiekun Huang a Ph.D. candidate at Boston College. The study looked at public companies with at least $500 million in assets between 1994 and 2005. Kisgen and Huang tracked CFO’s performance’s from the time they transitioned into the role and then for three years after. Kisgen wanted to conduct the CFO study because there is so little research examining whether gender plays a role in corporate decisions and there aren’t enough women CEOs to study.

The Gender and Corporate Finance study examined whether men and women differ in corporate financial decisions. What Ksigen and Huang found is that firms with female CFOs are less likely to make acquisitions and are less likely to issue debt than firms with male CFOs. Female CFOs are less likely to make significant changes to capital structure in general and reduce leverage more than male CFOs. Male capital structure decisions are as likely to move a firm toward its target leverage as those made by female CFOs. However, announcement returns are higher around acquisitions, debt offerings and equity offerings when the firm has a female CFO. The study makes the conclusions that women make different corporate finance decisions than men and that, “…the better announcement returns suggest female CFOs do a better job of maximizing shareholder value, at least along those particular dimensions.”

Paul Santinelli, a General Partner with North Bridge Venture Partners, says gender is not a factor when he evaluates a CFO. Santinelli looks at three things: domain expertise, financial experience and strong moral and ethics. As far as financial experience, Santinelli examines, “What has this person done in the rank and file to get to this position?” Morals and ethics are important to Santinelli because, “It is not too difficult screw up a good thing inside a company. Besides, CFOs usually run Operations, Human Resources and Finance. Governance and compliance issues are far more extreme than they were ten years ago.”

Santinelli’s criteria could bode well for women. Kisgen says one possible take away from the study is that female CFOS are careful and risk-averse and that the market responds favorably to the moves they do make. He says another possible take away is that women CFOS are higher quality, as they have had to overcome discriminatory hiring practices to get to a C-level position.

by Anna T. Collins, Esq (Portland, Maine)

When I first interviewed Patricia Gillette, an employment law expert and partner at Orrick in San Francisco, I noticed two things about the way she spoke about the future of the legal profession. First, despite the temptation to point fingers when discussing the ever-present wage gap in the legal profession, Pat Gillette focused on solutions. Second, she was optimistic about the possibility of change in the profession, especially due to the shifting economic reality. In Pat’s view, for example, women may be at an advantage as firms shift away from hourly fee structures – a shift that may be inevitable as the economy turns sour for law firms and clients. Women lawyers, in Pat’s experience, are at times more efficient at completing assignments. While the current billable hours system may not value the fact that they are able to complete work quickly, the legal profession of the future is likely to value this type of efficiency.

Pat’s focus on solutions and optimistic view of the possibilities for both women and men becomes less surprising and more poignant when one considers her work as co-founder of the Opt-In Project. The Project was partly a response to various articles published around 2003, which all examined what has been coined the “Opt-Out Revolution.” In articles such as “The Case for Staying Home,” “Mommy Madness,” and the infamous “The Opt-Out Revolution,” authors depicted the “trend” of women obtaining the highest levels of education, entering the workforce in record numbers, and then choosing to leave.

The founders of the Opt-In Project wanted to test the “Opt-Out” conclusion against the theory that women were actually being pushed out of the workplace. The ultimate mission of the Opt-In Project, created in 2006, was to “tap into the wisdom of industry leaders to find innovative strategies for the retention of professional women in the workforce.” Ultimately, the goal of the Project was to create a forum to take the discussion to the next level: Are there more sweeping measures that should be considered to create greater career sustainability for both women and men?

Despite its ambitious nature, the Project cannot be described as anything other than “a success.” Over a period of an entire year, the Opt-In Project brought more than 900 people together from a variety of industries for events in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and New York. Industry experts started each evening by presenting their ideas for improving retention and leadership opportunities for women. The conversation was then turned over to participants for smaller group discussions, which generated many ideas. These ideas, which are summarized below, are described in full detail in the Opt-In Project Report. The Report is available at the Opt In Project website.

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By Deb Katula (Chicago)

Four Indian women are listed among the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women – two are in government, one is a self-made biotech powerhouse, and the other, Indra Nooyi, is the US-based CEO of Pepsico. Conspicuously missing are the women of India’s corporate sector.

In 1991, in an effort to combat widespread poverty, India undertook serious economic reforms, eschewing market controls and opening its economy to the world. The resulting multinational corporation mass entry into the market allowed women to enter and excel in non-traditional (i.e., not teaching or nursing), corporate professions and in banking and IT in particular.

While significant progress has been made for women in the Indian corporate world, there is a long way to go. According to a Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) source, only a handful of women sit on the boards of the 4,864 companies listed: currently only 4.9% of the 12,741 directors on the boards of these companies are women and, out of the top 100 companies listed on the BSE, only 34.7% of the directors are women.

As in most other countries, one reason for the comparatively low number of women at the top of corporations is the difficulty balancing work obligations with home obligations. In India, this is a particularly challenging issue as women are still primarily responsible for children and the home (including their in-law’s home life), whether or not they work outside the home.

The good news is that there are a handful of successful Indian businesswomen – women like Naina Lal Kidwai, Chief Executive Officer of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation India branches; Hewlett Packard’s Managing Director Neelam Dhawan; and Jayashree Vallal from Cisco Systems, among others. These are the women who are paving the way for a new generation of businesswomen, breaking free of traditional roles and cracking India’s corporate glass ceiling.

Opportunities for training and mentoring by these successful businesswomen will pave the way into the next decade, inspiring the next generation of young women. The role of women in top positions will continue to increase as their input and ideas are tapped to ensure the continued success of India’s economic future.

by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Year after year, the number of female CFOs in the Fortune 1000 remains flat, or perhaps slightly down. Last summer, CFO Magazine reported that 10 female CFOS had joined the Fortune 500 and ten had left. However, only one month after they published that list, Erin Callan left her post as CFO at Lehman Brothers. Although Callan claims in interviews that the decision to leave was hers –a sacrifice as the public face of the company during a time shareholders wanted to see drastic change—most insiders believe she was ousted as a scapegoat by CEO Dick Fuld.

Susan Decker’s “departure” story involved the upward trajectory of two female executives. Decker left the CFO job at Yahoo to become president of the Internet company. Recently, however, she resigned as president when she was passed over for the CEO spot. But, the new CEO is a woman. The Internet company hired Carol Bartz, formerly of AutoDesk, to guide the struggling giant.

Another move with an interesting back story is that of Christa Davies. Davies had a high ranking position as a divisional-CFO with Microsoft. While on maternity leave, she received a call to join Aon Corp., a $10 billion company, as Executive Vice President, Global Finance. She is now Aon’s Chief Financial Officer.

Other female CFOs include Jean S. Blackwell, an attorney by training, who held many positions in Cummins, including serving as General Counsel from 1997 and Chief Financial Officer from Chief Financial Officer of Cummins Inc. from February 2003 to April 2008. Blackwell is currently serving as the Chief Executive of Cummins Foundation and Executive Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at Cummins Inc.

After 24 years with United Stationers, the last six of which as CFO of the organization, Kathleen S. Dvorak resigned from the company to “seek new challenges”. She now serves as CFO of Richardson Electronics in Illinois.

Judy C. Lewent, the first woman to serve as the CFO of a major corporation, held the position of Chief Financial Officer of Merck & Co., Inc. from 1990 until September 2007. She currently serves as co-chairman and executive vice president of Merial Limited.

The following women appear to have retired from daily corporate life:

Dianne M. Neal served as executive vice president and CFO of Reynolds American from August 2004 to December 2007. She is serving on several boards, including the Reynolds House Museum of American Art.

Patricia A. McKay was the Executive Vice President and the Chief Financial Officer of Office Depot. She held this position from October 2005 through March 2008 until she was replaced amid poor earnings reports. She had previously served as the executive vice president/CFO job with California-based Restoration Hardware.

Marianne M. Parrs served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Office of International Paper Company from November 2005 until the end of 2007. Ms. Parrs also serves on the boards of CIT Group Inc.; the Rise Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee; and the Leadership Academy in Memphis, Tennessee.

JoAnn Reed retired on March 15, 2008 after nearly 20 years at Medco Health Solutions, Inc., including 16 years as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. She is currently serving in an advisory capacity to the company through 2010.

E. Follin Smith joined Constellation Energy as senior vice president and chief financial officer. She left the company and the position of CFO to “be more actively involved with my children at this stage of their lives.”

Linda Dimopoulos started at Darden Restaurants in 1982 and was promoted from CIO to CFO in December 2002. She remained in that position until retiring June 2007 after 25 years of service to the company.

Statistics don’t lie –the percentage of women CFOs in the Fortune 500 is very small, as is the number of women across the C-suites. And while that in and of itself may not be news, it is still an important story about gender inequity in the workplace. However, the stories of women like Decker, Davies and Callan fill in some of the details of what is happening for women in corporate America.

The good news, as reported by CFO Magazine, is that there is a strong pipeline of female corporate controllers and treasurers at the top companies in the wings and in line to take the helm – women such as Joan Lordi Amble, EVP & corporate comptroller, American Express; Mary Boland, SVP & CFO, The Americas, Levi Strauss; Aileen Blake, EVP & controller, Northern Trust; Marcia Dall, VP & financial officer, Cigna Healthcare; Kim Harris Jones, VP & chief controller, Chrysler; and Teri List, VP, finance, global operations, Procter & Gamble.